Wednesday, October 9, 2019

iPhone 6s Plus Service Program for No Power Issues

iPhone 6s Plus Service Program for No Power Issues
While Apple is busy with the new iPhone 11, it still keeps tabs on its older phones. If you happen to have brought an iPhone 6s or 6sPlus recently, you might just be able to get it repaired for free. The no power issue with the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus seems to affect iPhones manufactured between October 2018 to August 2019. These phones all have a similar serial number, which may have the problem. The problem is when the phone does not power on due to a component part that might fail. Apple has even provided a serial number check to see if you’re affected, and offer a free iPhone 6 Plus Service program.

The iPhone 6 Plus Service Program?


With iPhones 6s and 6s Plus not powering on due to a failure on behalf of a component part, Apple has now initiated the iPhone 6 Plus service program. Under this program, you can get your iPhone 6s repaired for free if any breakdown is caused by the said issue. If you already have paid to get your iPhone repaired, then Appel is willing to give you a refund.

Any prior issues will have to be repaired first, like a cracked screen, for example, before the issue can be resolved.

iPhone 6 Plus Service Program, not the only Program in Town?


This isn’t the first time iPhone 6 has come under the radar with its issues. In 2016, Apple started the iPhone 6s Program for Unexpected Shutdowns and a worldwide Battery Replacement program too. All these programs are geared towards the iPhone 6.

Under the iPhone 6s program for unexpected shutdowns, the iPhone 6s will be covered for a period of 2 years since its initial sale.

Is your iPhone 6s in Trouble?


Apple has said that the not – powering on issue affects only certain iPhone 6s’ and 6s’s plus. Only a certain series of these phones are affected. To know if your iPhone 6s is affected, you can always check with Apple’s Support page. In this support page, Apple has given users the ability to check if the user’s phones are eligible for the iPhone 6s Plus service program. All you have to do to check if your phone is eligible is to enter your iPhone serial number into the serial box.

Apple has also said that by providing the iPhone 6s Plus service program, does not mean that Apple is extending the standard warranty on all these phones. This program will supposedly cover the phone for only two years after your initial purchase.

The free repair will only be applicable in cases where the iPhone isn’t powering up due to the Component failure. Any other issue will have to be looked in to at the user's expense.

Where to get your Phone Looked into if you’re Eligible for the iPhone 6s Plus service program?


You can have your phone looked at in an Apple store or in an Apple-authorized service provider, or alternatively, you could get in touch with Apple Support online, if you happen to be affected by the issue.

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

Privacy Tools in iOS 13: Get the Most out of Apples new Privacy Tools

Privacy Tools in iOS 13
To avoid viruses, bugs and what have you, out there, the best and most effective way is to get the latest software update. You may have heard this more than once from family, friends, and your neighbor’s grandma, but do not underestimate the power of the latest software update. Especially if it’s an iOS 13 update. The latest version of OS for Apple iPhone users came somewhere last week. This week, iPad users too can get more security with the latest version of IPads being released. Apart from the many new features, the new OS brings, updates to privacy tools is one of the key highlights of the new iOS 13.

Some of the New privacy Tools in iOS 13:


There are many cool and necessary privacy tools in iOS 13, one of them being a shortcut to automatically creating burner email addresses when signing in to apps. There is also a feature that silences Robo callers, where was this before now? Besides all this, there are even fewer buttons which aid in minimizing sharing of location data with third parties.

A Word of Warning:


As with most updates, with getting the latest in OS features, there are also several bugs to contend with. This one too is no exception. A word of caution, you may want to wait for a few more weeks till all the glitches are sorted out before you go on and download the latest version of iOS.

Logging in to Apps with a Burner Address:


The most useful privacy tool in iOS 13 is the ability to sign in to third party apps with Apple’s ID. This is not new to the tech world, however. The same is seen in both Google and Facebook. But to lend a little twist to the feature, Apple has now added a burner email to the cocktail.

When you register for a new app, they invariably ask you for your email ID. This is the point where you have the option to log in using your Apple credentials. Once you do this, Apple will ask you if you’d like to hide your email ID. When you accept this option, Apple essentially creates a burner email ID for you.

No more Robo Callers with the New Privacy Tools in iOS 13:


Robo calls are the most annoying thing yet. They call you throughout the day, and you go and pick them up only to place your phone down a second later, talk about a waste of time.

But with Apple’s new Privacy tools in iOS 13, you’ll be able to end this menace once and for all. You can activate this feature by going into settings and selecting “silencing unknown callers” option. So any time you get a call from an unknown person, the phone won’t ring or vibrate but will just show the notification on the screen. The robocall is automatically forwarded to voicemail.

While this may be good at getting rid of robocalls, it at the same time gets rid of calls from relevant unknown persons too.

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Apple Metal: The App Developer and Everything You Should Know About It

Apple metal
The Apple Metal is a low-level hardware-accelerated 3D graphic, and compute shader application programming interface. It provides direct access to the GPU (graphics processing units) that helps you to enable and maximize the graphics of the applications on your iOS, macOS and tvOS. Developed by Apple, Metal first came into existence on June 2014.

The app has developed on an easily approachable and low-overhead architecture that has the pre-compiled GPU shaders, multithreading support, finely grained resource control. Thus, the Apple Metal evolves in the support for different GPU driven command creation that simplifies the functioning with an array of this Metal-capable GPUs. It gives them access to the user to tap on the pro Power of Mac Pro and the Pro Display XDR.
What are the new features in Apple Metal?
  • GPU-driven compute encoding:

    Apple Metal is moving beyond the rendering passes, Metal in iOS 13 and tvOS 13 empowers the GPU to such extent that it now can construct its commands. Plus, it also enables indirect compute encoding too. The complete scenes can be built using the advanced tessellation and culling processes, and techniques. This can also be scheduled with little or zero CPU interaction.
  • Improved Acceleration of Raytracing:

    The Apple Metal performance Shaders or the MPS are capable of speed up the Raytracing operations more. Why? Well, MPS can move the bounded volume hierarchy construction to GPU. Metal Performance Shaders are also capable of providing new and optimized de-noising filters to an essential collection of those highly-optimized compute and graphics shaders. Thus, the MPS improved the acceleration of Raytracing.
  • Metal for Pro Apps:

    With the macOS Catalina, the content-creation applications are now capable of taking the advantages of Apple Metal too. The peer groups of Metal have made it easy to share the data rapidly between several GPUs in Mac Pro. The best part of this feature is you don’t have to transfer these data to the main memory. In addition to that, the enhancement of CAMetalLayer helps users to get access to the High Dynamic Range of capabilities of the Pro Display XDR.
  • Simpler GPU Families:

    Apple Metal has made developing an easy task to do. With simplified GPU families, it is even easier now. There are three well-considered groupings there that allow you to target the functionalities easily which are common in all of the Metal enabled GPUs. It has improved the harness support to the third party GPUs on your macOS.
  • Apple Metal memory debugger:

    The Apple metal memory debugger will help the user to get an insight into how much memory is the Metal objects consuming at runtime. It suggests youimprovements on how the resources are configured. This way one can take the full advantage of Metal.
  • Apple Metal-enabled iOS Simulator:

    The simulator helps to speed up the development of iOS applications using Metal. It either uses Metal directly or depends on the Metal-based system frameworks. It perfectly helps the transitioning from OpenGL ES to Metal to happen smoothly.
Metal is the best platform developed by Apple to help the developers. Try it now.

Saturday, September 14, 2019

iPhone 11 Pro: All you Should Know About It

iPhone 11 Pro

Tuesday was the day Apple released its newest addition iPhone 11 Pro to its iPhone range. While there was a lot of talk of the phones, the thing that really stood out with people was the stove like camera set up going on at the back of the phone. The camera has a mid night green color, if you’ve ever heard of such a thing, and is called “slowfie”. But besides this there were still some features that went unnoticed or they were just overshadowed by the weird looking camera.

Talk about Wi Fi 6 and that’s exactly what we’re going to do:

Lo and behold the new iPhone 11 Pro as well as its siblings come with Wi Fi 6, the latest and greatest in wireless networking. This is just like what Samsung did with its S10 phone too. So it’s no surprise too that the Cupertino based company did it too. By having Wi Fi 6 does not mean that the new iPhone 11 pro will not be compatible with earlier version of Wi Fi. It’s just that now with the new Wi Fi in town, communication is a lot faster and larger amounts of data can be transferred at a time than before. Not only that the new Wi Fi 6 allows devices to conserve battery by scheduling transmissions. Besides that you’ll still get better reception even in crowded places such as airports and stadiums. But getting back to iPhone 11 Pro, you won’t see any of Wi Fi 6 just yet, since the New mode of communication isn’t certified at present.

iPhone 11 Pro with ultra- Wideband Chip:

This was not given enough attention in Apple’s keynote but is still worthy enough for a mention in their official product site. This new chip dubbed “U1” increases the phone’s spatial awareness. This basically means that they are better placed now to find other iPhones that are in close proximity to it, say like in the same room. This chip will seemingly work better with AirDrop a feature that allows you to share files wirelessly with another iPhone. So just by pointing you’re device to the other iPhone in the room you’ll be able to send files to it.

iPhone 11 Pro with 18W Charger in the Box:

This is something that Samsung users have enjoyed for a little while now, I’m talking fast charging. Now Apple’s in on the game too with the new 18W USB C charger that it will ship with iPhone 11 Pro and its max counterpart. Seemingly you’ll be able to get 50% charge in just 30 minutes with this new charger in tow.

Gained a Little more weight this time around:

The iPhone 11 Pro and its max sibling weigh just a little bit more this year as compared to its last year’s counterpart. 18 grams more to be exact. But it may just fly under the radar since the weight increase isn’t that much.

Sunday, September 1, 2019

iOS 13 Public Beta: How to Get Your Hands on the latest Public Beta?

iOS 13 Public Beta
September 10th is the day when Apple plans on launching iPhone 11 and with that the final version of iOS 13. For iPhone users iOS 13 is the OS to wait for. iOS 13 promises to bring speed improvements, updates to many built in apps, a new dark mode, besides others. It’s no surprise then why many would like to get their hands on the newest beta already.  If you’re interested in learning how to install iOS 13 public beta then keep on reading… iOS 13 public beta was made available shortly after it was announced in early June.

By June 24th many developers could take a look see at what the newest iOS has in store. The early 24th June release was way before schedule. Apple besides other tech companies normally release the public beta version of an OS before its official release to solve any bug related problems the OS may bring. After the public beta release there are a number of updates till the official release to cure the iOS of any bug related malady.

 So coming back to iOS 13 pubic beta, the OS has had some seven updates till now with the seventh update just being rolled out. While developers get their hands on the 8th version, the public is given to try out the older one. Long story short, the earlier version of iOS 13 public beta was way too unstable to install. Now since users can get their hands on the seventh version, it is presumably a little more safer to install, that is by not turning your iPhone into a brick.

At this stage you will have less bugs to contend with, there may still be some minor issues that may occasionally pop up. So there are two options on the table, either wait for the official bug free release in September or install iOS 13 in its public beta garb right now. If you just can’t seem to wait for the September release, then there is a way in which you can install the latest version of iOS 13 today.

But Should You Download iOS 13 Public beta?

There are two betas- the developer betas and public betas. The major difference lies in who you are. By that I mean if you’re a – non-developer - user then the Public Beta, is deemed fit enough to install by Apple.

That being said, you may not have the headache – phone – stopping – app – crashing – bugs – around but you may still run into the average bug. Yes, even in spite of the 7th update. If you’re dependent on your phone for a lot of important stuff, who isn’t, then you might want to give iOS 13 public beta a skip.

Another option is that if you have a backup iOS device then you might want to try and install the beta version there first. No matter what you decide on doing, rule of thumb- always keeps a backup of your data in case things don’t go as planned. Now to, is your Device Compatible with iOS 13?

iPhone 6s users and above will be able to install the latest iOS. This includes iPhone SE as well. The newly released seventh generation iPod touch too can run the update. All iPhones released in 2015 won’t be able to see the light of a new software update. Coming to the iPad, Apple has made the iPad run its own OS which is now currently on iPad OS 13 4th public beta.

Finally, How to Install iOS 13 Public Beta?

To get iOS 13 installed you need to first enroll in Apple’s Public beta. To do so, head on to the Beta program page and log in using your credentials aka Apple ID and password. Once you agree to the terms, follow these simple steps to get started.

These steps will install the iOS 13 profile onto you’re device and then the install will begin. Under the getting started page, tap on the link to get your device enrolled onto the beta version of iOS 13. Once this is done you’ll be directed to the profile download page, where you just have to click on the download button.

On your iPhone you’ll be asked if you would allow the profile to be installed. Click on allow, because that’s why you’re here for anyway, and get things started. After this you need to head on to the settings app on your phone to enable the profile you just installed.

On the settings app you’ll see a notice saying that a profile is ready to be installed. Then tap profile downloaded. Once this is done at the side of the profile you just downloaded, click on install and follow the prompts to restart your phone. When the phone restarts the beta will automatically start downloading.

If you’d like to check the progress of the download, you can to do so in the same way you would a normal system update by looking at the General sub menu in Settings. If iOS 13 Public Beta isn’t up your alley and for any reason you would like to return to your older version then you can do so by pressing on the remove profile button in the General tab.

Getting the Latest Version of iOS 13 Public Beta?

Once you’ve installed iOS 13 public beta onto your phone, the next step is to get the latest version of it installed. This you can do by simply heading on to settings and then the General tab. Once there simply tap on Software Update and you’re done.

You’re iPhone will check whether you’re software is up to date and if not will prompt you to install the latest version. Then it’s a simple question of following the onscreen prompts to install the latest version of iOS 13 public beta. As mentioned earlier Apple plans on releasing iOS 13,that is the official version, along with its latest iPhone 11 at a special event to be held on September the 10th.